Edward Dugmore (February 20, 1915 - June 13, 1996) was an abstract expressionist painter known for close ties to both the San Francisco and New York art worlds
in post-war era following World War II. Since 1950 he had more than two dozen solo exhibitions of his paintings in galleries across the United States. His paintings have been seen in hundreds of group exhibitions over the years.
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Edward Dugmore was born in Hartford, Connecticut on February 20, 1915. He underwent traditional art training at the Hartford Art School before going to Kansas City in the summer of 1941 to study with Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. He entered the Marine Corps in 1943, and upon his discharge, taught painting and drawing at St. Joseph's College in West Hartford, Connecticut. In 1948, Dugmore took advantage of the G.I. Bill and moved out west to San Francisco to further his studies in art at the California School of Fine Arts. There he studied with Clyfford Still, who was influential on his development, both as an artist and a close friend. Dugmore also became a life-long friend of fellow student and artist Ernest Briggs. During this time, he co-organized an artists collaborative gallery called the Metart Gallery. In 1951 he moved to Guadalajara, Mexico to study at the University of Guadalajara, where he received his M.F.A. He moved to New York City in 1952 and began exhibiting along with other Abstract Expressionist artists at the Stable Gallery, where he subsequently had three solo exhibitions.
His paintings have been in exhibitions in important museums, institutions and art galleries over the course of eight decades beginning in the 1940s. Some of the museums and institutions in which his paintings have been seen include: Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie, IN; Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the New School for Social Research, New York, NY; The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; New York University, New York, NY, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Kansas City Art Institute; The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Musee A. Lecuyr, Saint-Quentin, France (organized by MoMA); among others.
His work is in the permanent collection of several prominent museums including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Menil Collection in Houston.
Dugmore received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1976 and 1985, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
Edward Dugmore died June 13, 1996 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
April Kingsley Suitcase Paintings, Small Scale Abstract Expressionism Georgia Museum of Art, 2007, page 56, plate 41
Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4. pp. 110-113
Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 31; p. 36; pp. 118-121
Nicholas Fox Weber, essay The Passionate Eye - Paintings by Edward Dugmore, published by the Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, 1998
Susan Landauer The San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism, Laguna Art Museum, 1996
Stuart Shedletsky Still Working: Underknown Artists of Age in America, Parsons School of Design, 1994
Dore Ashton, essay Edward Dugmore, Burning Bright: Paintings 1950-1959, published by Manny Silverman Gallery, 1991
Irving Sandler The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism, Harper and Row, 1970